The PostGIS implementation is based on "light-weight" geometries and indexes optimized to reduce disk and memory footprint. Using light-weight geometries helps servers increase the amount of data migrated up from physical disk storage into RAM, improving query performance substantially.

PostGIS is registered as "implements the specified standard" for "Simple Features for SQL" by the OGC.[2] PostGIS has not been certified as compliant by the OGC. For the OGC's definition of compliant, see What does "Compliant" mean?.